As to HARD HITTING.--“One of the longest hits in air of modern days,” writes a friend, “was made at Himley about three years since by Mr. Fellowes, confessedly one of the hardest of all hitters. The same gentleman, in practice on the Leicester ground, hit, clean over the poplars, one hundred long paces from the wicket: the distance from bat to pitch of ball may be fairly stated as 140 yards. This was ten yards further, I think, than the hit at Himley, which every one wondered at; though, the former was off slow lobs in practice, the latter in a match. Mr. Fellowes once made so high a hit over the bowler’s (Wisden’s) head, that the second run was finished as the ball returned to earth! He was afterwards caught by Armitage, Long-field On, when half through the second run. I have also seen, I think, Mr. G. Barker, of Trinity, hit a nine on Parker’s Piece. It took three average throwers to throw it up. Mr. Bastard, of Trinity, hit a ten on the same ground. Sir F. Heygate, this year, hit an eight at Leicester.” When Mr. Budd hit a nine at Woolwich, strange to say, it proved a tie match: an eight would have lost the game. Practise clean hitting, correct position, and judgment of lengths with free arm, and the ball is sure to go far enough. The habit of hitting at a ball oscillating from a slanting pole will greatly improve any unpractised hitter. A soft ball will answer the purpose, pierced and threaded on a string. The most vexatious of all stupid things was done by James Broadbridge, in Sussex _v._ England, at Brighton, in 1827, one of the trial matches which excited such interest in the early days of overhand bowling. “We went in for 120 to win,” said our good friend, Captain Cheslyn. “Now,” I said, “my boys, let every man resolve on a steady game and the match is ours; when, almost at the first set off, that stupid fellow Jim threw his bat a couple of yards at a ball too wide to reach, and Mr. Ward caught him at Point! The loss of this one man’s innings was not all, for the men went in disgusted; the quicksilver was up with the other side, and down with us, and the match was lost by twenty-four runs.” But, though stupid in this instance, Broadbridge was one of the most artful dodgers that ever handled a ball. And once he practised for some match till he appeared to all the bowlers about Lord’s to have reduced batting to a certainty: but when the time came, amidst the most sanguine expectations of his friends, he made no runs.